Monday, March 22, 2010

Some great warfighter technologies come out of the DARPA. Here is a synopsis for the development of composite armor with private company Hardwire.

"In collaboration with the U.S. Army, the Hardwire® DARPA Armor program exploited unique hybrid composite materials in innovative geometries and systems to provide improved military vehicle armor protection at a significantly reduced weight compared to other technologies. This approach to armor design has provided a suite of armor solutions that can be tailored to meet mission and vehicle-specific weight and performance requirements in response to specific and emerging threats. New insights and infrastructure for armor manufacturing has changed hybrid, composite armor production from a labor-intensive, small-quantity process to a quality-controlled, high-throughput operation. The program applied automated high-precision production fabrication technologies to adaptively and rapidly produce panels to specification and at a cost comparable to that of traditional armor. These changes in the composite armor design and production paradigm have made life-saving armor systems available for warfighter vehicles"